that special place

After a hectic work week, I miss the quiet villages of Cinque Terre, especially when most of the tourists have returned and all that's left - the sea, the colorful houses where real residents live in, the vineyards - still stand untouched in the lingering sunshine, as though the summer season never quite happened.

Sometimes, when we say we love certain places and want to live there forever, like Capri or Portofino or Santorini, I wonder if we still like them hors saison, when the sun no longer lights up those beautiful cliffs, when a perpetual grey gloom is cast over the villages.

I often catch myself thinking what it is like to live in a place like this... and that the year-long residents, those who proclaim their love thru all the seasons.. those people must surely lament the arrival of summer tourists like me, who come to profiter and use their beaches when the villages look their best and everything is bathed in a warm shimmery glow.

I believe, that when you find that special place on earth, you would love it when the sun is shining or when the leaves have fallen off the trees; a sense of solidarity binds you to that place. 

Have you found your special place yet?